Home sweet dome? Not for NCAA men

Georgia Dome could have cavernous feel for South Regional this weekend

Posted: Thursday, March 22, 2001

By Mitch StacyAssociated Press

ATLANTA -- Plenty of good seats are still available.

Men's South Regional

At Georgia Dome, Atlanta

Tickets available: 55,000

Tickets sold: 24,000

Cost: Packages are $80 and $90. Includes one ticket good for both Friday games and one for Sunday's game. Sunday's winner advances to the Final Four.

Participants: (Miles away from Atlanta)

Michigan State -- Lansing, Mich.: (621)

Gonzaga -- Spokane, Wash.: (1,958)

Temple -- Philadelphia: (665)

Penn State -- State College, Pa.: (604)

That's the mantra this week for organizers of the NCAA South Regional at the Georgia Dome, a playoff featuring a cavernous arena and a quartet of teams that can't muster a matchup with much interest on this side of the Mason-Dixon line.

Top-seeded Michigan State will join upset specialists Penn State, Temple and Gonzaga. They're not exactly college-hoops heavyweights, and with the four schools an average of nearly 1,000 miles from Atlanta, fans are expected to stay away in droves.

The situation could sour the Sweet 16 for the NCAA and South Regional organizers, who are counting on it as a dress rehearsal for next year's Final Four in the Georgia Dome.

About 24,000 ticket packages had been sold for the three games by Wednesday, and Steve Orsini, the Georgia Tech senior associate athletics director who's managing the South Regional, said he'll be happy if that many show up for the games.

That would not even half fill the Georgia Dome, which will be configured with the 55,000 seats that will be available for next year's Final Four.

''Obviously we're not giving up,'' Orsini said. ''We're continuing our marketing surge. It's a good weekend in Atlanta. There are no other sporting events in town, and we're hoping people will recognize the quality of the basketball being played in the dome and walk up and buy tickets to the games.''

Ticket packages -- one ticket good for the two Friday games and one for Sunday's championship -- are $80 and $90.

With the likes of Florida, North Carolina and Oklahoma in the South bracket, the chances for some high-profile contests in Atlanta were ripe.

But the No. 3 seed Gators, whose fans typically travel well and have a large base in Atlanta, were crushed by Temple on Sunday. No. 2 seed North Carolina, whose Chapel Hill campus is a half-day drive from Atlanta, lost to Penn State in the second round. Oklahoma, the No. 4 seed, lost in the opening round.

Ticket brokers in Atlanta are lamenting the matchups.

Big Ticket Sports expected to handle 50 to 70 packages for the weekend, instead they sold four, all to other ticket agents.

''Once we saw the matchups, we got nobody calling to buy and everybody calling to sell,'' said an employee who asked that his name not be used. ''There was (a North Carolina fan) with tickets sitting outside Monday morning when I got here.''

Selling tickets above face value is against the law in Georgia but brokers get around it by running the transactions through other states where it is legal.

''Out of all the regionals, this is definitely the one with the least interest,'' said Patrick Harvey, a sales representative with Austin, Texas,-based TicketCity.com, which offered tickets for sale in the Atlanta newspaper.

Gonzaga, whose campus is about 2,000 miles from Atlanta in Spokane, Wash., managed to sell 650 of the 1,200 tickets allotted. Ticket manager Molly Gee said Atlanta couldn't be more inconvenient for Gonzaga supporters, who usually travel well.

''I don't think you could find many places that are farther,'' she said. ''We're going to the other side of the country.''

Bulldog fans bought 1,500 when Gonzaga reached the Sweet 16 in Seattle two years ago and nearly as many for the Albuquerque, N.M., regional last year, she said.

It's not what it could have been, but Orsini insisted he's not disappointed in the matchups.

''These are great teams that have played very, very well,'' he said. ''It's really what March Madness is all about, that the underdog always has a chance, and I think our region is an example of that.''

This article published in the Athens Daily News on Thursday, March 22, 2001.